


Parachute

by wirewrappedlily



Category: James Bond (Craig movies)
Genre: Author is a madwoman, BAMF Q, M/M, don’t ask: just read it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-03
Updated: 2019-02-11
Packaged: 2019-10-21 09:26:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 10
Words: 13,965
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17640143
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wirewrappedlily/pseuds/wirewrappedlily
Summary: It was all very familiar.In the old days, he'd brought tyrants to their knees and toppled empires with a single shot--when his shots had been made to find the victim true love.Eros, the Greek god of true love, oldest of the gods, had been trained as a sniper.





	1. Your Voice Is My Favourite Sound

It was all very familiar. 

In the old days, he'd brought tyrants to their knees and toppled empires with a single shot--when his shots had been made to find the victim true love. 

Eros, the Greek god of true love, oldest of the gods, had been trained as a sniper. 

Over the centuries, Eros had grown to know the mortals he'd been tasked with giving a gift--he had been the husband of Psyche, the goddess of the mortal soul, after all. Eros had known that his gift was a curse to so many; that love was just as twisted and dark a weapon as the gun he carried now. 

"Target in sight," James Bond murmured into his comm, and halfway around the world, in a bunker beneath London, he listened to a posh sigh. "Am I boring you, Q?" 

_"Moneypenny told me to tell you to take the bloody shot."_ Q replied, and Eros--James--Eros almost smiled. 

The god of love had been an assassin for too long not to continue his path. After all, why would one give up that at which they excel? 

James doesn't pull the trigger, he squeezes slowly; the crook of a finger to beckon a lover to come forward for a kiss--the report of a rifle, even silenced, slicing through the icy cold of the snow storm. "Target down. Q, confirm." 

_"CCTV confirms."_ Q replied after a beat full of clicking keys. 

"What would be more entertaining for you, Q? How about dinner?" 

Eros had lost Psyche somewhere around the time he'd stopped dealing in love and started directly dealing in death. 

It'd been a few centuries, now. 

_"I appreciate the offer, Bond, but I'm not precisely your type."_ Q replied, somehow both dispassionate and beguiling. 

"Beautiful and dangerous? No, who in their right mind would say you're either?" 

The comms went silent then, and James's phone buzzed with travel arrangements that Q needn't be on comms to help him through. James shook his head at himself, sighing as he got to his feet and moved to get out of the frozen wasteland without a trace of 007, James Bond being present. 

When things were as quiet as they were in snow, James found himself thinking of Psyche. She'd been beautiful and dangerous, without a doubt; the good heart of the people who'd believed in love--in him--and the bastion of lust that love had managed to overcome. The suitors for Psyche's hand in marriage had been many and varied, but she hadn't wanted them; she'd chosen him. What she'd seen in him, he wasn't sure, because even then he'd begun to doubt the fealty of his calling and the truth of his power. But Psyche had seen something that had made her good heart willing to be placed in his calloused hands. 

Psyche and he had been happy for so long...but not long enough. 

When Greece was falling, and true love had been cast aside in the hearts of so many, Eros had blamed Psyche. Had blamed her for her fickle ways, and the heart that was young and vibrant and always learning had slipped through his fingers because of it. 

She hadn't needed to leave him as she had, because even Eros could admit that the last stand between them hadn't been enough to drive her argument to him home. 

Psyche had been beguiling. She'd been wild, in her way, and quietly dangerous to boot. Eros had been ready to kill her to appease Aphrodite--it wasn't her beauty that had distracted him, though. It'd been her fire. One of her suitors was boring her, and she'd tricked the irritating bastard into dishonoring his proposal by getting caught in a brothel. Psyche had had a twisted sense of right and wrong in that way; though the suitor had been humiliated, he'd also been given a pass from Eros's burgeoning jealousy. If Psyche hadn't done what she'd done, Eros may have killed the mortal so that he was no longer in Eros's way. 

Shaking Eros away for the façade of James Bond, the blond man slid easily into the second skin of his latest alias—sliding just as easily as he did into the night, headed for the closest thing he could consider to home. 

Q was half the world away, tucked safe in the arms of MI6, and would welcome James home with an assessing glance and a dry wit that had the blond more intrigued than he would like to ever face again—just as intrigued as he’d been, sent to kill the woman more beautiful than the goddess of lust, if only to stop the temper tantrum tearing Greece apart. 

Eros liked Q—James liked Q. Perhaps too much. 

Eros had disposed of many lives over the centuries; disappeared many times. He had intended to disappear from this one when he’d hit the water in Istanbul; why he’d come back not even he could answer, but that the sense of duty that he had sunk into with no thought to anything else was enough to force even the oldest of the gods into action. 

Of course, disappearing with Q on his shoulder would be nigh impossible, and James—maybe Eros—no, James wanted to take Q with him when it was time to go. 

Things would have been easier if M— _his_ M, of steel and ice and _take the bloody shot_ —hadn’t died in his arms. M had figured it out; had known that he wasn’t all he made himself to be, but was so much more useful than she’d ever imagined. She hadn’t known who or what he was, simply that he was _something_ : but that could have been enough for him to slide into the life of a Double-Oh for longer than a mere mortal’s life expectancy could sustain. He’d had allies with such ferocity of will before; allies whose mere mention had the intelligent enough looking the other way and the stupid enough quashed by people other than him. Keeping a secret like immortality wasn’t done alone. 

A soft tone sounded from James’s earpiece; not one that he’d ever heard before, and then the impossibly Saharan voice of his quartermaster was in his ear again, _”I’m afraid I am quite bored, Bond. And if I hack the CIA one more time today, Moneypenny has promised to use those lovely stiletto heels I made her to aerate me.”_

James laughed outright, unaccountably pleased at Q’s voice in his ear. “So you’re the one I have to blame for those damn things.” 

Q’s chuckle was warm and fond, _”I’d assume that she attempted to aerate you, but I know her better than to ever presume she’d_ attempt _when it comes to putting more holes in you.”_

“Oh? And just how well do you know Miss Moneypenny?” 

_”Well, I certainly don’t know her in the biblical sense, Bond; I’m just some lowly boffin, unworthy of the attention of a field agent.”_ Q’s impossible voice curled around the words in a way that made James wish to his bones that he could see the man before him. _”Besides, I’m still devastated from my last foray in romance. I’m much too delicate for things as fleeting as lust, and she’s not my type.”_

“The only delicate thing about you is the state of your hair, Quartermaster. And, perhaps, your grasp of time—isn’t it gone three in the morning?” 

Q hummed, and James knew he’d fallen upon something Q wanted hidden. Idly, James wondered if he was Q’s type; if that explained the late night handling the end of an op that didn’t truly require the expertise of the Quartermaster to complete. 

“You don’t have a couch in your office,” James mused, “were I to remedy that once I’m back, would you use it?” 

_”To sit?”_

“To nap.” James corrected, finding a touch of tenderness in his voice he hadn’t expected to be there as he stowed away his gear. 

Q hummed again, and James waited, knowing better than to press. _”In the meantime, amuse me.”_ Q ordered at last. 

James couldn’t have stopped his smile if he’d tried.


	2. They Wanna See Us Fall

It was tricky, walking the line of mortality and immortality. Power waned as belief did, but there were some things that could not be drained from a god. 

When true love was all but lost, Eros had lost the golden glow of godhood. He’d never been precisely handsome, but nor was he exactly terrible to look at. His was a face of intrigue; his was a presence of gravity that pulled those who fell into it in inescapably. Psyche had been the beauty; had told him that he was lucky his beauty was in his magnetism, because otherwise her jealousy could have rivalled Hera’s. 

Eros had often wondered where Psyche had ended up, or if her power had dwindled so far that she’d been lost completely to time and humanity. 

James walked into Q-Branch with what threatened to be a bounce in his step, his gear neatly gathered in the bag in which it had been issued and his resolution to take care of the Quartermaster absolute. What he found was enough to make his blood run cold, however. 

“007!” Cigdem Reis, one of Q’s favourite techs, dashed around her desk to get between him and the scene unfolding before them all. For a moment, James wasn’t sure _why_ the older woman wouldn’t have gone to stop 008 from grabbing Q’s arm herself, let alone why she would be stopping him from putting an end to it. 

As it turned out, Cigdem was stopping him to allow Q to drive his displeasure at the agent home. James winced at the sharp snap of bone ringing through the tense silence of the branch. “I believe I’ve made my point to you previously, 008. I have very little patience for repeating myself, but let’s see if finding some simpler terms won’t serve to improve your comprehension: Touch me again and I’ll do worse than breaking your radius; continue to sniff around my branch like some randy dog, and I’ll make sure you never go into the field again if only to buy Q-Branch relief from the burden of your presence,” Q’s voice was low and steady, not an ounce of strain visible as he kept hold of the arm he’d broken, applying just enough pressure for the bones to grind together as the field agent fought back a whimper. “Now, I’m going to release you. Do try to keep what wits you have about you, and refrain from doing anything too…idiotic.” 

James slid past Cigdem then, ready to run interference; he knew 008 enough to know that he was a viciously vindictive bastard, and Q releasing him would more than likely prove ill-advised. 

008 was barely released before he was winding up to grab Q by the hair, and though James was in motion already, Q proved to be faster on the draw, ducking the hand and stabbing a pen into the agent’s thigh as he did so, straightening with a frown. “Wrong pen.” He commented lightly as Cigdem tossed him another, which he depressed into 008’s neck as the man tried to turn while clutching the blood-slick implement that Bond suspected had hit an artery. 008’s eyes rolled up as Q took a neat step back from his slumping body, and James was close enough to have caught his fellow agent, but he couldn’t bring himself to care enough to do so. Q blinked at him owlishly for a moment when he looked up from the unconscious pile of person at their feet, and James found himself beaming with amusement and something he dared not consider pride. 

“Hullo, Bond. Good flight?” Q asked as if he hadn’t just taken down a man twice his size. 

“Would have been better if something as entertaining as this had been playing on the in-flight movie selections.” James murmured, shrugging as he raised his bag of tech, tacitly following Q’s lead in ignoring the man bleeding between them. 

“I’m glad to have provided you with some amusement, Bond,” Q sighed, taking the bag and stepping distastefully over 008 as a team of security and medical was ushered into the branch by Cigdem, Moneypenny sliding in as they carted 008 out. “How many pieces is everything in?” 

“Hm? Oh, everything’s intact, Quartermaster.” James purred, “Since I couldn’t seem to provide you with sufficient entertainment last night, I thought I might make up for it with every piece of your tech returned, save one bullet.” 

Q had frozen, staring at him as if he’d just started gushing blood from his orifices while loudly singing Tubthumpin. James smiled more softly, tilting his head and folding his hands in front of him. “I think I may actually faint. David, bring me smelling salts and a fainting couch.” 

James laughed, shaking his head as one of the techs helping Cigdem herd maintenance through cleaning up the blood turned for the Q-Branch break room. 

“Q, M would like a word about whether you could provide more of those pens for certain personnel.” Moneypenny cut in, barely looking up from her phone. 

“Did the footage have its desired effect?” Q asked in return. 

“Oh, yes. You needn’t have actually done that, darling; M would have gladly taken your word for it and sacked the bastard. But the girls in Intentions may be bringing you flowers soon—he’s been terrorizing them as much as he has you and I.” 

Q turned slowly, a look of such ire in his eyes that James briefly feared for his own life, “Had he laid a hand on them?” 

“Oh no, dear. That, they would have actually reported. You know Deidre, she wouldn’t let one of her girls get harassed that far without killing the bastard herself as soon as she found out. But I don’t believe M likes our particular brand of HR.” 

“When the system is actually likely to work in protecting the victim, I’ll let the system do its job.” Q asserted darkly as the tech he'd ordered to bring him smelling salts and a fainting couch handed him a cup of tea. 

"You needn't look quite so scared," Cigdem whispered at James's elbow as Moneypenny and Q continued to talk in what seemed to be code but James suspected was the strange half-language of good friends, "Q is very forthcoming when he's displeased; your flirting, unlike 008's, is welcome." The bald honesty of the woman was somewhere between utterly disconcerting and rather adorable, her dark brown eyes bright as she winked conspiratorially at him and turned back to scolding maintenance. 

"Was there something else you needed, Bond?" Q shook James out of his reflection that Cigdem's slight Turkish accent grew more pronounced the longer she yelled, and James turned back to find Moneypenny leaning against Q's desk, both their gazes fixed on him as if he were the only one that didn't belong in the land of the boffins. 

"I need measurements of the room in your office for your new piece of furniture, Quartermaster." James replied smoothly enough, though the entirety of the scene had left him feeling somewhat at a loose end. 

Q blinked, clearly surprised again, "I thought you were joking--" 

"Not joking. Entirely serious. You need a place to rest, and those horrid little cells that Medical provides for the overworked are surely some sort of experiment they're running in concert with Pysch, so the security team and I will be manhandling a couch into your office, Q." 

Moneypenny straightened, eyes bright with promise and mischief. "I'm on his side, darling, sorry." She murmured, shifting slightly to physically align herself on James's "side". 

Q's mouth pinched, his eyes narrowing slightly before he heaved a sigh through his nose. "You do realize that the longevity--" 

"I'll manhandle as many couches as necessary down here, Q, as often as necessary. Now, do you have the measurements, or will I be forced to cajole Cigdem into providing me with a measure tape?"

"I've texted you the measurements already, 007." Cigdem volunteered, beaming as Q threw her a look of betrayal. 

"I don't--" 

"You do." Eve and James insisted in unison. 

True love needn't be romantic, and Eros could sense how much Eve loved Q as a friend well enough to know that if he were to begin to annoy Q as 008 had, it would not be the Quartermaster and his pen full of horse tranquilizers to be concerned about; it would be Moneypenny and her sniper rifle. 

"Fine. Try to get me the most horrid colour they have, I don't bloody want to invite anyone but you from the executive branch down here for any length of time, Evie." 

She beamed, sketching him a salute before she ducked in and kissed him solidly on the cheek, "James and I will get something that is properly an eye-sore, darling." 

Q's gaze turned to James, a brow cocking, "You're the one that got yourself into this shopping trip: just remember that." 

"I'm not frightened of taking Moneypenny furniture shopping, Q, though I would rather be taking you." 

"I'll not take that personally!" Eve shouted back from halfway to the door, "Now are you coming or not, James?" 

Gently but immovably refusing to allow Eve to drive them, James pulled out of the MI6 parking complex and prepared himself for a day spent with one of the few he would consider a friend. 

"So, you fancy Q." Eve began, looking over at him, and James briefly wondered if he ought to have checked out body armour if he was about to be given the shovel talk. 

"He mentioned to me just last night that he wasn't interested in anything after his last relationship--if he's uncomfortable with my flirting--" 

"Nothing like that, James. Stephens had been asked multiple times by several of Q's boffins and Q himself to stop draping himself over workstations and take his cheap cheek elsewhere. Q seems to feel _your_ cheap cheek is close enough to real charm to let it continue." Eve sighed as she sank back into the passenger seat, "No, 008 made himself a royal pain in the arse. From what whispers I've heard, you usually make yourself at least somewhat useful, and know enough to get out of the bloody way when it's not the time to be whining for attention." 

"How long as Q had a problem with 008?" 

"Oh, since Q saved the bastard's life in Budapest and proved himself useful. Before that, 008 had firmly discounted Q for his age." 

James frowned, the recollection of his first meeting and their subsequent sparring immediately coming to mind. 

"You didn't seem to let his age dictate your thoughts on his usefulness." Moneypenny mused, watching him, "The other Double-Ohs weren't all so pragmatic." 

"008 is only a few years older than he is." 

Eve's brows rose that James would have checked the age of their Quartermaster, "Yes, but Stephens' background lent itself to believing women belong in the kitchen, not the workplace, and that the youth of today is delicate as candy floss." 

James looked at Moneypenny, somewhat horrified, and she simply shrugged. 

"He was flexible enough to be a Double-Oh, but that does not mean he was any less of an Old Boy, Bond. I know that for the good of the nation we try to limit the Double-Oh's contact with each other so that there is less bloodshed in the name of "fun", but did you honestly never meet the man?" 

"We met, but only briefly. Out of curiosity, will he recover?" 

"Oh, completely. He'll have a lovely scar from that pen to the thigh, though. I'm quite proud of Q for that one." Eve smiled, and it was sharper than most knives. 

"Who, precisely, is M likely to give those tranq pens to?" 

Eve hummed, "Can't say for sure, but likely security and Medical, though I daresay Accounting would be eternally grateful if he were to give them the means to make sure you bloody field agents couldn't dodge them forever." Eve eyed him as he pulled into a parking spot, her lips pursed slightly as she considered, "I'm surprised Q told you he wasn't interested after his last relationship--he's not one for flings, certainly, but I know you too well to think that's what you're after, doing something like this." 

James's gaze met Eve's, and it was his turn to calculate what to say, and how to say it, "For as right as you may be, Eve, we both know that what I can offer him at this point will amount to little more than a fling." 

For as much as it was a lie, it was a lie he knew how to sell; and when he honestly considered the thought of loving a mortal, if he could actually grow to love a mortal, every particle of Eros's being revolted at the idea of the loss. Love was pain, no matter how pretty it was packaged. 

"Ready to be wildly mistreated as my girlfriend?" James asked, eyeing the store in the hopes that Eve would allow the subject to drop. 

Eve allowed a daring smile, an eyebrow raised, "By you, or by them, James? Because I quite think that we could have some fun stringing along the masses by playing a game of sexually charged chicken. We may even give something to Q to be amused about."


	3. Catch Me

James Bond had tried very hard to love Vesper Lynd, but Eros knew, in his heart of hearts, that he hadn't quite been able to. 

Vesper's cutting assessment--of a man ill-fitted to the lap of luxury he'd been raised in, and unused to the skin he was expected to wear as a result--was only truly far off in the sense that James had more wealth than he necessarily knew what to do with, and had since he'd started living truly in the mortal world. The truth of it was, Eros knew work and devotion to duty above all else, and while he was able to slither into the skin of a man who'd never had to work a day in his life, it was the antithesis to who Eros was truly, who James had been made as a mask to hide. 

Somewhere out there, there may have been photographs of a man with bright blue eyes and short-cropped blond hair in military uniform for World War II, and World War I, and every war of Europe that had come before. 

Eros wasn't sure when he'd settled on Britain as "home", but he knew that Greece certainly hadn't felt like home for perhaps longer than he'd cared to admit. 

Sitting in his mostly-empty flat, Eros let himself reflect on whether James Bond felt like home anymore. 

The half-dark of night in the city was interrupted by the screen of James's mobile as it lit with an incoming call, number unknown. 

"Bond." 

_"Come let me in, my hands are full."_ Q's voice ordered, and James shifted, sitting up and switching hands on the mobile to lever himself to his feet, the shadow of injury to his left hand enough to make him wary of putting his weight on it. 

"What are you--?" James was cut off with a beep of disconnection, and he was headed to the door of his flat on autopilot, perplexed. 

Arms wrapped around a bag of food approximately as big around as he was, Q stood in the lobby of the building, looking unimpressed but not actually reaming James's doorman for having stopped an unknown man from entering when he'd snuck in on the heels of someone else entering. "Sir!" Michaels was in a tizzy, but James held up a hand and shook his head. 

"It's alright, Michaels. This is a friend of mine, I forgot he was coming over or I would have warned you to expect him." 

"Do you need me to take your food, sir?" Michaels addressed Q. 

Q sighed, an amused edge to his features, "No, thank you. I expect it's too precariously balanced at this point--Bond, lead the way. It was lovely to meet you, Michaels." 

James led the way back to the elevators, shaking his head to himself. The ride up was silent as the scent of Korean food permeated the elevator, which the neighbours likely would loathe. James took the opportunity to rake over Q's features, taking mental measure of the signs of stress and exhaustion he saw in the pinch of his eyes and the pallor of his skin. They walked into the flat, James turning on lights as he went, and Q moved into the kitchen as if he'd been there a thousand times before, eyes flicking over James's lack of dining table, along with the dearth of anything resembling comfort in the apartment. A frown ticked down at the corner of his mouth, but he said nothing as he unloaded the bag. 

"Usually I prefer Korean barbeque, but I've had a hankering for bulgogi of late." Q told him as if it explained anything at all. 

"With or without the kimchi?" 

Q's nose wrinkled slightly, "Without. I realize it goes against nature, but I cannot bring myself to like the stuff. I got you some, though." 

James watched as Q moved to his cupboards, finding plates on the first try before moving to utensils. "Have you been here before?" 

"No." Q answered on a sigh, "But I doubted you'd rearrange the kitchen, and MI6 all but begged me to move into this building once I became Q, so I've encountered the basic layout." 

"I take it you refused." James murmured. 

"There was no way I would have ever accepted." Q scoffed. "My building is more secure than the bloody palace, I don't need to have a doorman." 

"I quite like Michaels." 

"He seems lovely." Q said as if agreeing, still looking through James's somewhat Spartan utensil drawer, "No chopsticks?" 

"I'm afraid not. I don't tend to eat here." 

Q looked over the edge of his glasses at him, and James couldn't help but smile at the utterly exasperated expression on Q's face. "Scotch is not a complex carbohydrate, Bond." 

"Nor is tea, Q." 

"Thankfully, I don't perform the physical exertions which would make a heavy carb load necessary." Q replied primly. "Do you have something to drink besides scotch, by the way?" 

"Vodka, for Alec." James replied smoothly, just to watch Q's hackles rise further. Ribbing Q about the care and keeping of his agents never ceased to get the man near murderous. James let himself delight in Q's growing ire for only a few moments, though, "But I do actually have some tea, if you'd like. Jasmine?" 

"That would be lovely." Q's ears coloured slightly, his delight a bright and shiny thing. He moved out of the kitchen to allow James into it, opening one of the cupboards to bring down a vacuum-sealed bag of the dried blossoms. 

"Black for something like this, right?" James confirmed, well aware that he oughtn't know how Q liked specific types of tea if he was actually keeping his distance as much as his instincts told him to. 

"Right." Q confirmed softly, something soft and complicated on Q's face as he watched James fill the kettle and produce an unopened box of fillable tea bags. 

It had been James's intent to bring Q the jasmine after he'd collected it in Turkey; his intent to sneak properly-brewed loose leaf in as the next cup of tea he provided for Q in Q-Branch...but he'd known that acts like those were bordering on too close of comfort. "Where did you find decent Korean?" 

"You haven't even tried it yet." Q scoffed. 

"No, but it smells perfect." James returned. 

Q leaned against the edge of the counter separating what would have been a dining room from the kitchen, popping the lid from a bowl of bulgogi and using the rough takeaway chopsticks to collect a mouthful of the food, offering it to James silently. James took the bite, humming delightedly at the bright bite of spring onion and the subtle sweetness of the shredded carrot to leaven the sesame and soy. 

"It is very decent Korean, and you must tell me where you found it; it'd be cruel not to." James told him, feeling warm at Q's small, private smile. 

"Well, I'd hate to be truly cruel." Q mused, "But I think I'd rather keep this one for myself, as leverage."

"Oh? And what would you be leveraging me for, Quartermaster? Is it someone you need scared into submission? Maimed? Killed?" 

Q's smile turned into something between coy and vicious, "Bond, we both know that if I needed someone scared into submission, maimed, or murdered, I'd be more than capable of doing so myself." 

"Mmm, that is true. But I would think your reputation as the darling can only take so many casualties before that reputation sours." 

Q wrinkled his nose, "Who said I ever wanted the status of darling? I'd much prefer to be known as just as deadly as I truly am." 

James leaned over the other side of the counter, the kettle only just starting to bubble, not yet boiled behind him, a safety of a timer for James to get lost in the gold-green of Q's eyes. "So what would you have me do for you, Q?" 

"Dine with me again." Q replied simply, his eyes and face laid purposefully open to James's scrutiny, and James felt as if he were the one being laid bare. 

"I'd say all you need do is ask, but you evidently don't even need to do that." James's voice was dangerously fond as he gestured to the feast laid out between them, pulling himself from Q's eyes as the kettle began to truly boil. 

"Yes, well, I didn't think you'd say yes." Q told him carefully when his back was turned. 

It took James a moment for things to click before he realized what it was Q had done. 

Today was the anniversary of Skyfall, and Q had come to James's flat with food and company rather than allow James to face the night alone. 

Truthfully, though James did mourn her death, he did not dwell on it: could not afford to begin to dwell on the deaths of the friends and bloodless family lost to him. The only loss he'd allowed himself to dwell on was that of Psyche, really; the rest passed for him as ghosts only when he needed to remind himself of the pain of their passing. 

"I would apologize for imposing, but I am feeding you, so I find myself hard-pressed not to call us even." 

"No, I think I may owe you one, Q." James contradicted, taking down a second cup and making himself a tea as well. Q hid his surprise in everything but his eyes, and James knew he'd made the right choice. "I was sitting here in the dark, ruminating over my navel before you came. I haven't had anything to drink, but that's not to say I wouldn't have started." 

Q realized that James had figured out the play, and looked slightly chagrinned, "I don't mean to--" 

"When have you ever known me to go along with something when I don't think it's right?" James asked softly. 

Q coloured further than his ears, and James was unaccountably pleased, fishing out the second set of takeaway chopsticks and breaking them apart, rubbing them to rid of any splinters before he turned to the food. Q followed suit, the silence stretching comfortably between them. 

Eros was hard-pressed to truly deny that he wasn't falling into the orbit of Q; for as enigmatic as he was, there was a familiarity to him that threatened feelings Eros had thought long-forgotten. 

"I have a question," James began, and Q's features crumpled just slightly at the way he was starting, "and you can tell me, of course, to fuck off, but I have to ask it: Your last relationship...what happened? Because Moneypenny told me it was years ago, before you two had even met, and I can't quite place if it ended so badly that you don't want to get hurt again, or if..." 

"If I'm still in love with the bastard?" Q supplied, looking chagrinned all over again, "I'm afraid that's the answer you're looking for." There was a melancholy in Q's features that went so deep Eros almost reached what was left of his powers out to try to find an ease for it, but it wasn't his place to meddle with the mortals any longer, not like that. "It...I'm not sure he knew what he was getting into when he fell in love with me. I think, once he started seeing more of me than what he'd thought there was, he didn't like what he saw." 

Eros knew the story well enough, though he was surprised that Q could love someone so blind deeply enough to hold onto the love when it was gone. "But you..." 

"I loved him with every twisted piece." Q admitted, taking a deep draught of tea. "And...this sounds awful, but I try to make sure he's alright. That he's safe, at least. He doesn't know--and it's not his fault that I hid from him the part of me I didn't want him seeing. He might've loved me anyway if I had let him know who I was from the start." Q was blushing again, head ducked and food forgotten before him. James's stomach felt like lead at the pain he'd caused in asking. 

"I'm sorry--" 

"No. It's fine. It's been long enough, I've grown something of a thicker skin when it comes to talking about it." Q's smile didn't reach his eyes, and James clenched his fists beneath the counter to stop himself from reaching out and pulling Q into his arms. As Eros, he could still have the power to try to heal the broken heart of the man in front of him...but he wasn't sure he remembered how to, anymore. Q licked his lips, clearing his throat, "In any case, please don't tell Moneypants that I keep my eye out for him. She'd be livid if she knew I was doing that to myself." 

"Why are you doing that to yourself?" James asked quietly. 

"I tried...I tried letting him go completely," Q murmured, shaking his head as if dispelling a nightmare, "but I never really could." Eyes more gold than green turned on James then, assessing as if laying all the pieces of James Bond out, ready for assembly like a well-maintained gun. "Have you had a love that you would have lost every part of yourself in, if you'd dared to?" 

"Once." James found himself answering, voice rough. 

There was a pinch at Q's eyes again, the complicated thing back but the fondness replaced with apprehension. "You dared, didn't you?" 

James hesitated, but the truth won out and he shook his head slowly, "No...I hid from her, the dark parts. The parts that make me good at this job." 

"Why did you hide?" Q asked, voice catching slightly. 

"Because I didn't deserve her in the first place." Eros admitted, "I spent so long alone, I was beginning to wonder if it wasn't better to be alone forever...when I met her, she made me believe that I could be what she believed me to be. That I could be a better man than I was...than I am." 

Q's eyes were tight with shared pain, "And isn't it some hideous cliché that you're meant to be with the person who expects you to be better than you are?" 

James offered a small smile, his own sadness settling into him. He offered his mug to toast, and Q's smile was sad, but it reached his eyes this time, and he gently clinked their mugs together. 

"What shall we toast to? True love?” 

“I used to think that that was a thing that happened only for other people—now I’m not so sure it happens at all.” James admitted. 

“Then, to fairytales. May they keep the masses happy.”


	4. If I've Got You, I Don't Need a Parachute

It had been a part of Eros's power to sense love; and it had been a part of Eros's power to heal the scars left by love shattered. As James Bond, Eros used the ability to sense love to tell whether or not he might be barking up the wrong tree to bed the beautiful women that he bedded for the sake of Queen and country. But there had been a time when Eros had used what little power he'd had left to help those he had come to care for. He knew, even as weakened as he was, that he could still do it; when it came to Q, though, he wasn't sure about taking the chance that his powers would make things worse if he didn't remember exactly how to control them. 

He really didn't like Rome, James reflected as he navigated the mazelike walkways. Rome had stolen his story--had stolen all of their stories--and twisted it beyond recognition. Cupid, winged son of Venus, was what he'd been reduced to, and it gave Eros a headache to think of himself as truly beholden to Aphrodite in any way. 

_"What's the weather like?"_ Q asked, clearly bored, and James smiled to himself as he ducked into an alcove and doubled back on the goons sent to shadow him, pulling out his phone to make as if he was taking a call as he did. 

He was in no danger yet; this was to monitor his movements only, but it rankled his instincts, and they were easily lost in the throngs of tourists. "The weather's not bad. One of those overcast days that lull you into thinking you mightn't get a sunburn because there's no actual sunshine." 

_"Well, at least I can feel a little better that you are also not likely to see the sun. I might actually sell my soul for a sunny day here."_

"I never took you for a sun-baby, Q. Do you freckle?" 

_"Oh, I'm only rarely a sun-baby. Only when I have a newly-finished car that I'd like to drive to the coast with the top down."_

James's chest gave a vague throb at the memory of the lost Aston, "Save selling your soul until I'm back, and we'll make a picnic of it." 

Q hummed, _"Not to sweeten the deal, but I have some munitions tests we could also run."_

"You'll spoil me," James purred, a honest smile on his face. 

_"Come back with your gear and yourself intact, and we'll have our day of sun. If not, I'll have to take Moneypenny."_

"Ah, so we're back to leveraging me. I'll see what I can do, but I'll make no promises." 

_"Good. I do so hate it when men make promises they can't keep."_ Q sighed. 

"I try very hard not to make any promises and mean them." James murmured, sliding into a chocolate shop, "Now, what would you like?" James knew Q could see him, and didn't need to elaborate on the selection. 

_"I have to defer to your good judgement here, Bond. The look of that hot chocolate fountain is far too distracting."_

James smiled at the girl behind the counter, catching sight of his tail catching up in the reflection of the display case. Ordering a selection of confectionary, James watched as the two goons tried very poorly to blend into their surroundings, neither of them seeming to realize that they had been made. 

_"That orange blossom-shaped chocolate is ludicrous. It's too pretty to eat."_ Q complained, voice distant as though he was only half paying attention. 

James paid and thanked the staff, trailing a group of nuns out of the shop and heading towards the post office. "I'll be sending you a care package, darling. You deserve a treat for putting up with me." 

Q hummed again, _"I won't argue with that, but your tail likely can't hear you, Bond, so you needn't worry about making a charade of dating me."_

"I know, I wish I could be there for our anniversary, too. You know I'm devoted to you." 

_"Painting yourself as married is perhaps not the best way to lure your target's girlfriend into bed with you, Bond."_

"Mmm, I don't think I will be, love." James's voice dripped with a regret he didn't feel as he arranged to have the chocolates delivered to his place, which would automatically reroute them to Six. "I do so wish _you_ could be here." 

_"Ah, so she's already turned you down."_

"Not at all. I just miss you. This place wouldn't be nearly so boring if you were really here." That was closer to the truth than Eros could really afford, but Q's snort of derision was enough to bring a small smile to his lips: Q knew how to protect him, even when he didn't know that's what he was doing. 

_"Your friends outside have been called away, Bond. They look to be headed back to their base. The team that was sent to ransack your hotel room has done a piss-poor job of covering the fact that they were the ones that ransacked your hotel room, but have left as well."_

James passed onto the street again, relying on the vagaries and noise of the street to cover for his sudden change in conversation and tone, "And what did they find?" 

_"The bag of diamonds."_ Q replied, as if that was a victory. 

"Did they leave with them?" 

_"Of course, otherwise it wouldn't look like a burglary."_ Q's voice was light and easy. 

James had been meant to use those diamonds to barter for an arms deal. With them stolen, he wasn't sure why Q wasn't reaming him out. "You make it sound as if you had this planned." 

_"Oh, I did. That's why they weren't just diamonds. Once they bring the diamonds in range of the base, I'll have the location and be able to brute-force my way into their systems."_

"So my objective..."

 _"Remains, at least until I can actually get into the systems. ...Hm, my bugs were able to link-up to their comms already. The two who followed you are dumb as a bag of rocks, but they're suspicious of how you managed to slip them."_ It was James's turn to snort in derision, and Q laughed softly, _"Quite."_

"I'll be careful, darling." James purred gently, and Q's breath seemed to catch. 

_"What did I just tell you about making promises you can't keep, Bond?"_

"I always come back to you." James murmured, then dropped his voice, "Not a promise, a statement of fact: _I always come back_." 

_"I live in fear of the day you won't. You know how I loathe the paperwork."_ Q retorted, sounding unimpressed in the extreme. The truth of the matter had been that James had been in Q-Branch to bear witness to the last time Q had lost an agent—the only time Q had lost an agent since becoming Q. James hadn’t known what to do; how to face the blank desolation of Q’s eyes when they’d finally turned from the screens. There had been no tears, no breakdown; just the quiet of having the breath painfully knocked out of your lungs, the tremulous edge Q thought they walked together all too close to slipping completely out from under him. James wasn’t so full of himself as to think that it was for him alone that Q’s mind had run through all the ways there was to lose someone—but he had been the one there to focus on. 

There were very few ways that Eros could be killed, and all had been lost to time as far as he knew. Caught in the memory of that night, Eros had to consider, for a moment, what it would be like to tell Q just why Q would never have to worry about losing him permanently. James was not nearly so quick to heal as he had been when he was at full power, but the rumours of his immortality in MI6 were not nearly as far off as most would believe. What, truly, were the ramifications of telling his Quartermaster that he was a god? 

Q could have him sectioned, certainly; but if he tried, Eros reflected, what other loss would there be when James Bond finally disappeared?


	5. Just Hold Onto Me, I'll Hold Onto You

James would normally be making a very public appearance in the Michelin-star restaurant that his mark and his mark's girlfriend had an ill-advised habit of dining in as sun set over Rome. 

As he thought on the realization that, more and more, his loyalty had attached itself to his Q, James had forced the separate part of himself that would always be Eros to truly consider what it would be like to let Q in. True romantic love was Eros's specialty, but what if what he had with Q transcended romance? Anteros wouldn't be able to call it love between friends, or even love between brothers, but it was more than James had ever wanted; more than the lust that had come with loving Psych and certainly more than the idle challenge of Vesper Lynd. He knew the pieces of Q that Q had professed no one had ever dared to come close to, and he'd found that they matched his twist for twist. 

James couldn't be arsed to care what his normal play would be. 

"Have dinner with me, Q." James murmured, looking out over the city from his balcony window. 

_"Bond--"_ Q cut himself off, and there was a soft click as the line changed from the monitored feed to one Q had created to give them a spot of privacy. _"What do you think you're playing at? You should be--"_

"I've been robbed, Q." James replied evenly, "The sun is setting over the city, and I would like to enjoy this view with you, if you'd be so kind. I can catch our quarry when they go to drinks tonight." 

_"Bond--"_

"James. You know, it took me a while to realize that you never call me by name?"

 _"Now is not the time. This is not just toying with me, you bloody prat: this is toying with your safety and the safety of innocents."_

"I would never toy with you, Q. For one thing, you're far too dangerous for that kind of thing. For another, I take you far too seriously." 

_"Then take me seriously now and get to the bloody restaurant."_ Q seethed over the line. 

"No." James turned from the window, slipping out of his jacket and undoing his cuffs, rolling his shirtsleeves in even cuffs over his forearms as he popped another button at his collar and crossed to the room service menu. 

_"Give me one good reason not to hand you over to Jeremy and go haring off for the weekend."_ Q demanded. 

"Because it's our anniversary, darling, did you forget so soon? And you say I'm getting forgetful in my old age." James answered easily. 

_"It's not--"_ Q began to hiss, cutting himself off as the wheels almost audibly ticked over in his head. 

"Three months since you saved me from myself with some well-timed Korean takeaway." James told him softly. 

_"That was not an overture."_

"No, but it was a beginning." James hummed. "And, since you didn't bother to ask then, I'm not asking now: Have dinner with me. Don't make me involve Moneypenny. You know she'll get you something horrid as takeaway, just to spite us both." 

_"...James, please don't do this."_ Q asked on a whisper of a breath, and if James weren't quite such a bastard, he might have backed off.

"Give me one good reason not to have dinner with the one person I've cared truly cared about in years." 

_"We shouldn't be doing this--"_

"On MI6's time? The only real commodity MI6 has is time, Q." James returned to the sunset, and wished he could watch it burnish Q in the glow of the gods. 

_"Just because I planted those bugs to be taken--"_

"I will complete my mission, Quartermaster. I'm simply asking for one meal. You order takeaway, I'll order room service. I'd start up my laptop to show you the view, though I doubt the camera on it will do this view justice." 

_"I'd rather we be eating together at your flat._ That _view is lovely."_ Q murmured, just this close to a whisper, and James had to smile. 

"That can be arranged, Q. But I have to admit, I will have to be greedy here, and insist you eat with me while I soak in this one, too." 

_"If I were to threaten your credit rating if you were ever to try this again...?"_

"I would know that you were displeased, but not _too_ displeased." James replied, the smile evident in his voice now. 

_"And what would convince you of my displeasure enough to ensure that this_ does not happen _again?"_

"A pen to the thigh might do it." James pretended to consider. 

_"Masochist."_ Q accused idly. 

"You did display, quite effectively, what you look like when you're not happy, Q." James reminded, "Ruining my credit score is a nuisance at best. I'm shocked you haven't already, to be honest." 

Q laughed, and James grinned in victory. 

"What are you ordering?" James asked after a moment, having selected his own meal from the menu, but not yet having put the call through. 

_"A hit on you."_ Q scoffed. 

"I'd pair that with a red, I think." James hummed. 

_"Why must_ you _be the most infuriating agent I have? Is there some sort of bet on who'll give me a grey hair first?"_

"No, I broke up that bet weeks ago; if anyone's going to give you a grey, it'll be me. No one else is allowed to try." 

Q paused then, though James could hear the muted hustle of Q-Branch behind him. _"Why are you doing this, James?"_

A small glow spread through him that Q was still calling him James, and Eros was caught between wondering what it would be like to hear Q call him by his real name, and what it would be like to lose him when the godhood was let out of the bag. 

"Because there's no one else, Q. You're the only one I'd choose to spend tonight with, if the choice were only mine to make."


	6. You'll Never Win the Fight

Even a god could be tortured. 

When once Eros would have been strong enough never to let mortals lay hands on him, he'd been laid low far enough that his strength wasn't truly inhuman.

In the mess of blood and fire, Eros reflected on what had brought him to this point. The mistake he'd made, in thinking the others had fallen just as far as he had. Because he'd been sent to hunt an arms dealer from the heart of the civilization that had stolen Greece's story for its own--and hadn't realized, had been too fucking blind to see, that the arms dealer had once been Ares, and his trophy wife had once been Aphrodite. 

Eros had largely eschewed the other gods, of course; he'd been unimpressed with the frivolous mess of them, and the disaster they tended to leave in their wakes. But to fail to see two of the biggest pains in his ass there had ever been was something of a disgrace, even for him. 

Vaguely shocked that Ares had left him to be tortured by mere underlings, Eros tried to compartmentalize his injuries: his long-damaged shoulder dislocated, the arm gone completely, icily numb from being wrenched behind his back as they'd worked; his skin decorated in stripes of burns he knew would be the ruin of James Bond, covering his inner thighs and his shoulders at even intervals; his right ankle shattered; three of the fingers on his right hand dislocated, possibly broken. Even if he had a hope of escape, Eros wasn't sure he had the power to hold himself together through the pain long enough to stand, let alone get himself free. Eros's strength of will was legendary; but he wasn't sure it was enough to call what dregs he had left long enough to heal even the smallest of the injuries they'd dealt him. 

_"James, we're working to get you out."_ Cigdem assured him quietly, as if anyone but him would be able to hear the flesh-coloured earpiece that was so well-fitted to his ear that it had been missed when he'd been stripped.

Covered in blood, feeling smaller than he ever had, Eros almost didn't care that it wasn't Q's voice in his ear as he laid on the damp stone. He was almost past the point of being able to care...but Q meant too much to him. Had always meant too much to him. 

Q had been there for him when he’d failed, and when he’d succeeded. Q had built him the tools he needed to make it home, and had welcomed him to that home with honest smiles. 

James closed his eyes, and forced himself to face what he felt. Q meant more to him than anyone had, and for all the careful distance they’d both kept, James knew that Q cared for him just the same. “Tell me that Q’s hared off for the weekend,” James pled weakly, voice mangled by the blood dripping down his throat. “Tell me he won’t listen.” 

If anyone was likely to have a god-killer weapon, it would be Ares. 

_”We are going to get you out.”_ Cigdem’s voice had hardened to steel, and James couldn’t help but feel a spike of relief that even if they couldn’t, Cigdem wouldn’t let Q stumble too badly. 

“Take care of Q.” James ordered, as if she wouldn’t already. “Tell him I’m sorry, I’ll be late for our picnic.” 

James picked the earwig from his ear, and snapped it, knowing that even if Q wasn't there, he'd listen to the recordings. He didn't need to listen to James's end. None of them did. This was the end of a conflict that had gone on for a long, long time. 

"You know," Aphrodite purred softly from the doorway, slinking into the cell without an apparent care for the dirt or the blood, so long as it was his blood, "considering how long Psyche's been keeping you safe, I'm surprised your little trollop let you out to play with us here." 

"What are you talking about? Psyche and I..." 

"Fell apart? Oh, I know that. It was delicious to watch. And I very nearly tried to take her under my wing once she was free of your spell, but she holds a grudge almost as long as I do." 

James didn't bother to try to move, knowing that the moment he did, Aphrodite would call for the torture to start over again, if not start in on it herself. "If that's the case, she would've killed me a long time ago." 

Aphrodite scoffed, "She never hated you. Poor dear has loved you while watching you seduce your way through mission after mission. Has suffered through watching you shot and stabbed and tortured. But the coup de grâce has always been that you’ve never realized Psyche was there.” The cruel twist of the voice of the goddess of lust and beauty was like another knife to his skin, and from where he laid in a pool of his own blood, Eros wanted to scream at the chance that he’d lost. “Maybe when you’re dead, Psyche will relax a little. It’s been damned hard to start a proper war with the two of you protecting the little mortals. Don’t worry, Eros; I only intend on killing you. Once Psyche’s present, of course. On the way, the little darling.” 

Eros grit his teeth, and focused not on the temptation of wondering how Psyche had gone about taking care of him, but on how being James Bond for as long as he had had taught him to use lust, and how Eros would be able to use Aphrodite’s own power against her. “Which of the infractions shall I be killed for, then, Dite? Ares would see me dead for ending the war between Carsus and Piopeleon, but you…there are just too many times I’ve bested you, Dite.”


	7. I Don’t Need a Parachute, If I’ve Got You

The faraway sounds of gunfire should not have been comforting, Eros reflected as the five needlepoints of Aphrodite's talon-like nails faltered in the piercing of his skin. 

Someone was coming for him. It'd been three days, give or take, and James knew that MI6 would either be extracting him, or leaving him to die--no matter what Q wanted. 

Smirking bloodily at Aphrodite, he glanced as much as he was able over her shoulder to where Ares was no longer appreciating the view of Aphrodite torturing him. "Something wrong, old friend?" James managed, wheezing slightly, and as Aphrodite smacked him across his ruined face with all the inhuman strength she had, Ares crossed to the door. 

"It has to be Psyche." Ares muttered, sounding almost worried. 

Aphrodite scoffed, derision in every line of her, "That wilting flower?" 

"The human soul," Eros managed to retort, struggling to breathe as blood poured into his mouth from the damage done to his nose and cheek, "just as twisted, and reckless, and dangerous as they are..." Just as complicated and strong, and needing of care. 

Aphrodite hissed at him like a sodden cat, and Eros couldn't stop his smile, laughing at her openly. "You would know what they are; you're barely better than one of them yourself!" 

"I never wanted to be better than them. I've never pretended I was. That's your vanity, not mine." Aphrodite slapped him again, and Eros almost missed the sound of the gunfire drawing closer over the ringing of his ears, "You couldn't stand that you're _a part of them_ , not a gift of your own creation. Lust...wrath. They were right to classify you both as sins." 

An arrow protruded from Aphrodite's neck as she wound up once more, beautiful face caught in a mask somewhere between her snarl and her shock as she began to burn from around the arrow. An arrow that looked suspiciously like one of Eros's own. 

A second bolt stopped Ares as he rushed for Eros to finish the job, and behind him, two members of a Six extraction team stood; one holding a bow very near Eros's own--the one Eros had destroyed when he'd turned from his calling. "We've got him, Cigdem." Alec Trevelyan's voice had never been quite such a welcome sound. The one armed with the bow stood aside to let 006 enter, and as Alec pulled a knife to cut James free from the chair he'd been tied to, Eros knew that he was looking at Psyche coming to his rescue with Alec, in whatever form Psyche had chosen to protect him in. "Mate, you look..." 

"Ravishing?" James gurgled, slumping from the chair the second the bindings were cut. Alec caught him, hissing at the pain he knew touch would be causing. 

"We'll get you taken care of, you lucky git." Alec grunted, lowering them both to the floor before he looked to the figure lurking still in the doorway. "Psyche, you said you have something that'll help?" 

Eros flinched as the masked figure in the doorway nodded once and pulled a vial from a hidden pocket, stepping forward to give it over. Psyche hesitated in the doorway at seeing that flinch, and Alec huffed exasperatedly in Eros's ear. "Please." Eros coughed, not even meaning to speak the word. It was of greater curiosity--it should have been of greater curiosity to know how the bloody hell Alec knew the figure in the doorway was Psyche. But James knew the presence that stood there; only had to see the face beneath the mask to lay any question of it to rest. "Please." 

With steady hands, the mask was lifted, and James wasn't surprised to see the bright gold-green eyes meet his defiantly. "Hullo, Eros."


	8. Won't Tell Anyone About the Way You Hold My Hand

James wasn't entirely healed by the phoenix tears Alec and Psyche had brought with them, but it was enough to get them from the building before one of the two of them blew it up, the two god-killer arrows collected and the bow stashed away as they met the rest of the standard MI6 extraction team, and handed James to the paramedics. 

There ought to have been questions as to just why the Quartermaster had been present for an extraction. 

There ought to have been questions about how James had managed to walk when mission recordings had clearly heard hostiles break his ankle. 

James had found, as he was medicated to take away the rest of the pain, that he couldn't be arsed to care how Q would pull this particular magic trick off. 

When James next woke, he was laying in Medical, with a hand firmly grasped in his, and a head of brown curls asleep near his hip. 

There was no telling how long James had before Q--before _Psyche_ would awaken, and for as comforted as James was to see him there, there was almost too much between them for consideration. 

_I'm still in love with the bastard,_ Q had told him, knowing damn well that James had no idea who he really was. _He might’ve loved me anyway if I had let him know who I was from the start._

It had never been a lack of love for Eros, he knew now: It had been a lack of faith; of trust. Over the last three months, James had grown past trusting Q and had Eros been less damaged, he would have fallen in love with the mortal he’d mistaken Q for. To Eros, there was no questioning the necessity of all the pain he’d been put through to get him to this moment, when he could honestly say that he loved and trusted the partner to whom he’d pledged his life. 

Skin prickling awfully as it healed, James laid in bed and considered Q. From this angle, James couldn’t see his face, but it was easy for him to picture; he’d seen Q asleep before, many times. It was telling, James realized, that Q and he had had no compunctions about being in each other’s space. Q had made himself a place in James’s life with what looked to James to be ease. They fit, in a way that Eros and Psyche hadn't before. 

Licking his cracked lips, James reached his free hand over to gently lay his hand over the back of Q’s neck, the effect almost instantaneous as Q shot up, blinking owlishly for all of three seconds before his eyes focused on James and widened. “James!” 

“Hello, Q.” James smiled, despite the pain, and Q leapt up, crossing to pour James a glass of water. “Are you alright?” 

Q’s hands stuttered as he bent a straw into place for James to sip through. “I’m hardly the one who was taken captive and tortured.” Q said carefully, clearly not quite understanding why it was that James wasn’t asking the more pressing questions first. His shoulders were hunched slightly; movements rigid as he turned back to James and offered James the drink. 

“No, but I do know how my Quartermaster overworks himself when his agents get into trouble.” Q glanced to the corner of the room, where a CCTV feed monitored the occupants, and a small, grateful smile graced Q’s lips. James wasn’t going to force a confrontation that would lead to Q having to erase the footage; was of half a mind not to have the confrontation at all, if there was any way to avoid it. 

“Thankfully, I had followed through on my threat and hared off for the weekend,” Q smiled softly, setting the nearly empty glass aside but hesitating before he took James’s hand again. James’s grip was solid as he took Q’s hand, his breathing steady despite the protest of his cracked ribs. “We managed to collect all of your kit but the earwig, James.” 

“You made a very detail-oriented extraction team, then.” James replied on a groan as he shifted slightly, causing Q to flutter in fret. He looked at Q under his lashes once Q had settled again, thumb rubbing gentle circles over the pulse in Q’s wrist, “Take me for the picnic anyway.” 

“And give you a treat for bad behaviour? No, you and I will be staying in.” Q told him firmly, a glint in his eye as he twisted in James's grip and squeezed James’s hand. 

James hummed softly, and murmured so low that not even one of Q's bugs would have been able to pick it up, "That seems like a treat of another kind altogether." 

Q's eyes were alight with laughter, his mouth pressing into a line. "You're impossible." 

"No; I'm merely unlikely." James replied, chuckling as Q reached to push James's hair back from his forehead. "Am I due for a trim?" 

Q hummed softly, though not really in agreement. James knew, as Q's eyes traced over his face, that Q was resisting the temptation to kiss the skin he'd gone to such lengths to save. 

"I do love you, you know." James told him conversationally, reaching up to catch Q's hand as it retreated. He met the gold-green eyes without a flicker of fear, and even if James Bond had never been Eros--if he'd lived a thousand other lives with this man in his orbit--he knew that he'd have fallen in love with Q every time. 

"Oh, do you, now? What brought this on?" 

"You did." 

"You don't believe in love." 

James's gaze grew far away as he considered what he believed now, "Perhaps...but I believe in you."


	9. You Turn the World Around

If Psyche were anyone besides the Quartermaster of MI6, James would be impressed at the steps taken to counter-surveillance. 

"Would you like coffee?" Q offered quietly. 

"Thank you, no. I'd much prefer to know what name you'd prefer." 

Q's smooth movements stuttered, much as they had in James's hospital room, "Q. I...I prefer Q. I worked hard to become Q." 

James smiled, “You make a magnificent Q. Things were…not well-run before you got there.” 

“Would you prefer—“ 

“I quite like James. I’ll be sad when the time comes.” 

Q squinted at him slightly, “You always were a glutton for punishment. The things you’ve done to yourself…I was working in Baskerville before I came to Six. I only came to Six because I knew you’d return despite being mortally wounded.” The tight pinch of disapproval at Q’s lips was somehow more endearing than the trouble that had been gone to in taking care of him despite that disapproval. Sitting in Q’s living room, it was very nearly easy to forget who they were and all that stood between them. “The phoenix whose tears you drank owes me no more favours, I’m afraid, or I would give you another dose. Though she may volunteer them if we show her proof that the first dose couldn’t completely heal all that those fuckers had done to you.” 

James hummed, but not in assent. The truth of it was, he was more than used to healing at near-mortal speeds, and wouldn’t be allowed a mission until the proper time had elapsed anyway. “How did you find a phoenix?” 

“She found me.” Q told him, smiling slightly. “Boredom is rampant, you know that.” 

“I can only imagine, though, that allowing you to be bored would likely end very poorly.” James smiled softly, and Q looked away, caught back in the discomfort of James’s avoidance of the confrontation he’d expected. 

“I am…sorry, James. For misleading you about who I…” Q was no longer really the goddess of the human soul, but nor could he honestly say that he wasn’t. 

“You’re forgiven. Though I do have some…questions. If I may be so uncouth as to ask.” 

Q coloured delicately, and licked his lips. “The change…to being male?” He asked delicately for confirmation that that was what James was curious about.

“Is this…the real you? Had you wanted to be a man, even then, and I simply…neglected to notice?” James swallowed what scraps remained of his pride; he had known, he had learned, that he had failed Psyche as a lover in any case. 

“Not…precisely. I was happy enough, being a woman. I oscillate between the two…when I have the strength to. Gender-fluid, I believe it’s called now. I simply have an edge in changing my appearance to match.” 

“You use your powers to change? Do you rarely feel the need to change…or are you still that powerful?” 

“I rarely feel the need to change…but, yes, James, I am still powerful.” With that admission, Q’s hand flipped up from where it had been picking at his trousers, and a light filled Q’s palm, the golden glow of godly magic summoned without any sign of strain on Q’s part. “The human soul has never really suffered a lack of faith, the names simply changed.” Q looked from his palm to James’s face, biting his lower lip, “Love…the humans still need love, James, they always have—“

“Love wasn't the problem, Q, I was...I am." 

"Trust issues." Q murmured, his gaze flicking over James as if he was separating James into his component pieces for examination. "Trust issues, and you fall in love with someone as changeable as me." 

"I like that you're changeable, Q. Always have. I'm sorry for only now...learning, because I don't think I'll ever fully understand and nor do I think I want to. Your mercurial nature is practically a guarantee against boredom." 

Q's mouth twitched, but he lost none of the hesitance that was an antithesis of the normally cocky, mouthy Quartermaster James knew and loved. 

"That is...if you'll allow me to stay." 

Q blinked, "What?" 

"The way I see it, we have two options: If you don't want to...continue what we have, what you've built for us, then I will make James Bond disappear for you. I don't fancy working with another Quartermaster, to be honest, and I don't think it would be too difficult to make it seem as though I've died...again." 

"And what if I want more than what we've built, James?" Q asked softly, gaze steady and open. 

"The rumour in Six is that we're shagging." James mused, "Your minions are under the assumption that you and I are married. I think it'd be best we start with dinner tonight. What do you say?" 

Q's answering smile was like a sunrise after a dire storm, and something soft and warm bloomed in James's chest. "I think, technically, you and I are actually still married." 

James laughed, reaching for Q. Contrary little shit that he was, Q didn't let himself get pulled into James's embrace. "Aphrodite said that you've been taking care of me for years..." James began softly, and Q pulled himself closer, their legs touching as Q toyed idly with the undone top button of James's shirt. 

"On and off." Q answered lightly, and as he ducked in to suck at the pulse in James's throat, James knew that there was much more to the story than Q wanted him to know. 

James wrapped his fingers in the dark curls, gently but inextricably angling Q's mouth for a soft, slow kiss, "Why did you wait so long?" He asked at last, the puff of Q's panting for air tickling at his skin. 

"I wasn't even sure you'd want me after...after that. And changing like this--" Q cut off as James's hand shifted from his hair to trail pressure down the line of his spine, sending a ripple of sensation through Q that left the man shuddering. 

"Let me be perfectly clear, then, Quartermaster. I want you. I doubt there will come a time when I do not want you. And when they put a bullet in my head, it will still not be enough to stop me from coming after you." Q shivered into James as the broad expanse of the agent's hand roved into his hair, trailing touches like fire down his neck and tracing over the soft curves of his lips. "Would you like me to prove it to you?" 

Q was shaking, trying very hard to keep himself both from pulling himself into James's arms, and to keep James from doing the pulling for him. "You're injured." 

"You know...I barely feel a twinge." James mused, voice low and close in Q's ear as he urged the man closer on the luxurious expanse of couch they had perched themselves on. 

"You are the worst possible person to be judging your medical state." Q scoffed, but he turned his head towards James's, and their lips met in the most ephemeral brush of skin, all too fleeting for James's tastes. 

"I'll allow that assessment, Quartermaster, if only because I'd _like_ to be able to do this properly." James murmured, pulling reluctantly away and looking into Q's gold-green eyes, "The last time...we were rushed. We were married before we knew what to do with each other." James's fingers played with the gentle curls of Q's hair, greedily tracing skin as if those stolen touches would be enough to sustain a starving man. "I'd like, very much, to learn who you are, Q. All of who you are." 

Q's eyes flashed behind his specs, his tongue peeking out to wet his lips as he looked at James as though his gaze alone could devour, "That could take years, my love." 

James quirked a gentle smile, blue eyes intense under golden lashes, "Decades..." James teased, very nearly kissing Q. 

"Lifetimes." Q finished, looking dazed already. 

"It's a good thing I have a gift for immortality." James hummed. 

Q shivered again, but he distanced himself from James with this one. “We should talk…about your job.” 

James grunted a grudging agreement, and Q slid close to him on the couch, ducking against his chest when James lifted his arm to wrap around Q’s shoulders. “I won’t be long for this line of work in any case.” 

“What will you do?” Q asked curiously, fingers toying idly with James’s cuff. 

“Disappear for a few years. I’ll have to take it easy for at least two, in order for the scars to actually fade.” Q nodded, but he was frowning softly. 

“They do fade, if the rest of you isn’t getting beaten bloody?” Q asked in an all-too-innocuous tone. 

“What Le Chiffre did is all but gone from the time…” 

“You took with Vesper.” Q finished for him, and it occurred to James that the incredible power in his arms had once very convincingly told him that the wrath wrought should he stray would have rivalled Hera’s. James kept a silence, staring at Q almost hesitantly, until Q seemed to catch on on his own, “I don’t…I’m not happy about it. But I understand, James.” 

“She reminded me of you when we first met,” James admitted, voice tight. “At first, she treated me as you had treated your suitors. Do you remember?” 

“With an almost-cruel disdain? Oh, yes, that does explain why you liked her.” Q laughed, shaking his head. “Of all your…exploits, what happened with her makes me the angriest. Not even M ordering Moneypenny to take the shot—it’s what the betrayal did to you that made me the most wrathful.” 

“M was of the opinion that it was necessary to make me a better agent.” 

“M can kiss my arse, as far as I’m concerned. Like she needed or wanted you to be a better bloody agent! Six couldn’t handle you _before_ your trust issues rivalled the size of the bloody Louvre!” 

James couldn’t help but laughing softly at this little tirade, pulling Q closer in the circle of his arms and burying his face in the stretch of warmth between Q’s shoulder and neck. “I love you.” James whispered softly, and Q’s mounting ire seemed to flood from him as James’s lips brushed his skin on those words. 

“I love you, too.” 

“I trust you.” James pressed the far more important sentiment into Q’s skin before he nipped Q’s earlobe, happy in the shudder that caused. “What fealty and faith I can offer, it’s yours. It has been for a long time.” 

“The minions think we’re married for that very reason,” Q chuckled a little breathlessly. “You curbed sleeping with everything that moved around the time I started regularly leaving Q-Branch.” 

“But the rest of Six still just thinks we’re shagging,” James tsked at that. 

“The rest of Six doesn’t have Cigdem, who knows who both of us are, by the way.” James pulled himself reluctantly out of Q’s neck at that, unease mounting through him. “You honestly didn’t notice when she started making offerings to Eros, didn’t you? You aren’t her primary god—I am—but still, James, you should have felt some uptick in power.” 

It presented the very real possibility that James was too far gone from Eros to even be a god anymore, but Q smoothed the line of his frown away with steady hands. “As I said, I don’t think it’s the mortals’ need for love that changed, Q.” 

“‘Always there comes an hour when one is weary of one’s work and devotion to duty, and one longs for is a loved face, the warmth and wonder of a loving heart.’” Q quoted softly, the words of Albert Camus familiar to James in a way that transcended merely hearing them before. “I’ve had something of a crash-course on your devotion to duty of late, James. You believe it is your duty to protect that which you love,” Q’s gaze was guileless, and James wondered at it, “you have spent the last few centuries protecting the mortals, because you love the mortals, and you married one to prove it.” James leaned in, catching Q’s mouth with his and using every trick he knew to get Q luxuriating in the kiss. James doubted anyone but Q would understand him on such a level. He was old, and weathered, and he did not deserve the beauty in his arms, but said beauty would not hear a word about what James did or did not deserve, and James knew it. “I wish…taking out Ares would have any effect on everyone trying to kill one another…but I don’t have much hope.” Q panted between kisses, flushed such a delectable pink that James was forced to remind himself he wanted to take things with Q slow. “We’ll have to watch Tinder’s stock prices to see if removing Aphrodite has had any effect on lust.” 

James laughed into their next kiss, only stopping when Q resisted the gentle urging of James to straddle him. 

“You have two cracked ribs, and you still have burns on your thighs and your shoulders. I’ve let you exert yourself too much already.” Q told him, voice steadier and more controlled than James would have thought. “In point of fact,” Q checked his watch, “you’re due for some of the burn salve Cigdem gave us. Strip.” 

James opened his mouth and raised his brows, an innuendo balanced on the tip of his tongue, but Q shot him an unamused look that was enough to stay the coming smarm. James sighed as Q stood from the couch, crossing to where Q had dumped their bags by the stairs. James undid his cuffs, finding that Q had undone more buttons on James’s shirt than the original two James had chosen to leave undone, and James hadn’t even noticed it happening. “I’m ashamed to admit, I don’t remember if Cigdem was here before you were or not.” 

“She was. Who else was I supposed to have in place to help you?” Q scoffed, “I was not about to leave your well-being up to you, James, and Cigdem was already in place in Q-Branch before even you got there.” 

“Was she a devout before you came out as a god?” James asked curiously, trying and failing to hold back a grunt of pain as he stood to drop his trousers. He was stiff and sore, but he hadn’t lied when he’d told Q that he’d barely been feeling it with Q in his arms. 

“Yes. She didn’t even know I was me until I broke a keyboard in frustration during Skyfall. Then she twigged to why I was so very concerned with you.” Q came back to where James still stood, his hand cool but steady as he reached out to touch James’s waist, where a particularly nasty hematoma had bloomed in the shape of Ares’s boot. Before the tears, James suspected the bruise had been some impressively bad internal bleeding, but he would never know. “We ought to do this on my bed.” 

James’s eyes lit up with another opportunity for innuendo, but Q raised an imperious finger to silence him, the laughter in his eyes belying the frown on his mouth. 

Q led James through the apartment, and as they neared Q’s bedroom, James realized what he was seeing decorating the walls. 

There were the photographs; the drawings. A grizzled-looking blond man, smirking over his shoulder as he climbed into his bomber for World War II; a World War I uniformed regiment standing, with only one man’s face turned from the camera to be caught only in profile. There were the shots of his life; shots he’d always considered himself lucky were never found. James caught himself staring in wonder at them, only to realize with a start that Q was waiting for him in the doorway. “There’s much more to the story of how long you’ve been looking after me, isn’t there?” 

Q simply smiled.


	10. All the Things That We Have Planned

James Bond and the Quartermaster of MI6 were a legend whispered of with fear dark places populated by those who wanted to watch the world burn. 

The unkillable agent, and the unstoppable man who kept him safe. 

They were a legend whispered of with mingled jealousy and apprehension in the intelligence community. 

The agent toeing the line between insolence and being fully rogue, and the impossibly calming voice on the other end of the comm line. 

Eros and Psyche walked the halls of MI6 towards Q-Branch: James in a pair of jeans, a white button-up, and his leather jacket; Q in jeans of his own, and a gunmetal-grey cashmere pullover that looked to be about Bond's size. They were seen together often; even before they'd officially begun dating. 

It had won Cigdem a tidy sum when she'd won the pool on whether or not they'd been dating to begin with. She wore the blessings of two gods on her wrist; one to keep her love true, and one to keep her soul free. She beamed at the gods who had given her those blessings as they walked into Q-Branch, and they let her usher them towards the garages, and the waiting car. 

When James laid eyes on the fully restored DB5, he was thankful that Q and he were already technically married. 

For one thing, it saved Q the indignity of James Bond getting on bended knee just at the sight of that car.


End file.
